BREECHES. 349 



those who are destined to wear boots and breeches. The 

 buttons below the knee should be made of pearl, scant half 

 an inch in diameter, or what is technically called twenty-two 

 line buttons. The edges of the buttons are bevelled off and 

 the centre is concave so as to prevent the heavy thread, 

 with which they are sewed on, from protruding above the 

 top surface of the button. 



Leather breeches, or "leathers" as they are commonly 

 called, should be worn in place of trousers by servants except 

 in the country where distinctly country carriages are em- 

 ployed. Their use is required by judges of the National 

 Horse Show Association for a city turn-out entered for a com- 

 petition in which appointments are to count. That they are 

 not universally recognized as essential to a well appointed 

 trap is due largely to two causes: first, the additional ex- 

 pense ; second, to a popular impression that they indicate a 

 desire for display. The former consideration often proves 

 prohibitory, but the latter objection is false when the practi- 

 cal advantages are realized. Take, for example, a groom 

 jumping off and on the box, and frequently compelled to get 

 down into the mud or dust of a dirty street and go around 

 the carriage in the performance of his duties. What is the 

 result if he is uniformed in trousers ? They soon get baggy 

 and dirty : the owner expects them to do for several seasons 

 and cannot understand why they do not look better. "James 

 must be careless, and there is no use attempting to keep 

 things up to the mark.'' On the other hand, breeches are 

 easily cleaned, and owing to their peculiar cut do not bag. 

 The boots, when properly polished, present as good an ap- 

 pearance the hundredth time they are used as they did the 

 first. 



